Our own definitions of beautiful I’m a cricketer and an educator – not necessarily in that order. As the former, it’s been a sad and confusing week. The death of 25 year old cricketing prodigy Phil Hughes has deeply shaken every cricketer that I’ve met and spoken to. It’s not just that a young man has died, as…
Finding voice in a foreign language I recently returned from a voyage to Kazakhstan where I delivered a keynote to hundreds of School Leaders and Teachers while the snow built up outside – it was a little surreal. I’ve been fortunate to visit the city of Astana before and the experience is always jam-packed with…
Do Our Schools Have Anger Issues? Let’s look at the facts: * 46% of our male students and 26% of our female students report that they have been in physical fights. * 74% of Teachers report a low understanding the physiological importance and the effect of anger in our bodies/brains is the key to better behavioural choices. * 60-70% of our students view…
Fighting for a Successful School Culture There’s a favourite scene of mine in the great Sylvester Stallone “Rocky” movies (it’s actually from the fourth installment where Rocky fights a gigantic blonde Russian ‘block of iron’ called Ivan Drago – don’t pretend you haven’t seen it!). Rocky is receiving a terrible thumping from his opponent when…
No … this isn’t another weight loss article. Apologies if the title of this article may have led you to believe that within these words lays the secret to dropping 7kgs in a week and to getting those rock hard abs in just 15 seconds a day. Truth be told, if I had those kinds…
Last week, we presented some statistics about how thinly spread our current School Leaders are in terms of time. For instance, we asked if it’s ok with you that (behind recording, reports and budgets) the next most common use of Principal time was transitioning between other activities! Judging by the number of folk who replied requesting…
We’re abolishing “Drop and Run” Professional Learning The research tells us that in any presentation of around 90 minutes that passive participants commit around 7 seconds of content to long term memory. That equates to around 0.13% of what’s being delivered actually being remembered long enough to impact practice. That’s not much “bang for your buck” is…
Don’t fill your 2014 PD days! Now that we’re late in the 2013 School Year, the thinking and planning for 2014 will be in full swing. As a former School Principal – I remember it too well! Your thoughts will also be on how to invest in your people for 2014, such that they are up…
NAPLAN Week is almost upon us. In this VideoBlog, Adam explores the attitudes, behaviours and conversations that School Leaders might consider employing to ensure they get some real benefit from the week. At the same time, we needn’t compromise the wellbeing of our staff and students. As always, the answers are in asking HOW questions…
Andrew Fuller describes truly resilient kids as being those “who grow through the cracks in the concrete. In other words, they thrive despite all of the risks and all the disadvantages that see the odds stacked firmly against them. In the videoblog below, I explain a little about how the problem manifests in our schools…
